A Handbook of Rhetorical Devices - VirtualSalt

Ellipsis - Examples and Definition of Ellipsis

by Leonardo Boff (Orbis) First Place Award Winner in Spirituality, Catholic Press AssociationA fine reinterpretation of atonement theory from a liberationist perspective. The central thesis holds: every understanding of Jesus death must begin with Jesus historical project embodied in his message and praxis of the kingdom of God. --Roger Haight, author Jesus Symbol of God This classic work of liberation theology explores the meaning of the Cross, both as it has been interpreted in the past and how it should be interpreted in the context of contemporary faith and circumstances. These particular circumstances include the poverty and repression, fear and violence under which so many of the world s people suffer today. In such a world, how can the Cross be understood and preached and what are the consequences of that understanding? When Boff first wrote in the 1970s his immediate context was military dictatorship, torture, and violent repression. As he notes in his new Preface, that context must be enlarged today to include the passion of the Earth a continuation of the Passion of Christ in our time. The meaning of Christ s Cross remains the same: at once the symbol of a crime, and a sign of love and hope that violence does not have the last word.

When “shade” becomes a Jeopardy question?

by Vishwa Adluri (Continuum) Parmenides has survived the "parricide" committed against him in Plato's Sophist and in every philosophy of plurality and becoming. Despite the brevity of the fragments of his poem, supposedly titled On Nature (Peri Phuseos), and the apparent simplicity of its central thought -- "being is" -- Parmenides continues to nourish speculation, historical research, and philological debate. We now even have Parmenides Publishing, which has printed or reprinted over half a dozen studies of the pre-Socratic to date. The series Continuum Studies in Ancient Philosophy currently includes no fewer than three books on the topic: Raymond Tallis' The Enduring Significance of Parmenides, Lisa Atwood Wilkinson's Parmenides and To Eon, and Vishwa Adluri's Parmenides, Plato, and Mortal Philosophy. Adluri's work stands out for the radicality of its argument, the subtlety of its interdisciplinary interpretations, and the forthright passion that motivates it. Adluri's radical reading denies that Parmenides is the enemy of plurality and becoming. How can this be, if the poem bluntly argues that, since "being is," becoming is unthinkable and being is eternally one -- pastless, futureless, and featureless? The answer begins in plain sight, on the surface of the poem, but this surface has been ignored all too often by readers who assume they already know what Parmenides stands for. Parmenides does not in fact say "being is." The phrase (with its sundry tortured variations) is uttered by an unnamed goddess who addresses the poem's narrator. The poem begins in the first person, describing the narrator's (Parmenides'?) passionate journey ("as far as thumos might reach," fragment 1, line 1) to the gates of the divine domain. The goddess then welcomes the voyager and presents two accounts: an account of the "truth" (monistic being) and an account of mortal opinions about the mutable cosmos. The usual assumption is that the first-person proem is window dressing: like the dactylic hexameter, it is a remnant of or concession to the prephilosophical, mythmaking culture from which Parmenides is emerging. The goddess' first account is assumed to be Parmenides' own theory. Her second account is then problematic: if there is nothing but being, how can there "be" a plurality of phenomena, opinions (whether true or untrue), and opiners? Parmenides the monist turns out to be an extreme dualist, due to his uncompromising split between reality and appearance. Our task is then to construct a logical solution to this split -- if not within Parmenides' theory itself, then in our own physical or metaphysical theories.

In the earlier period of Vedic studies, commencing about the, middle of the nineteenth century, the traditional method, which follows the great commentary of Sayana (fourteenth century A.D.), and is represented by the translation of the RV., begun by H.H. Wilson in 1850, was considered adequate. It has since been proved that, though the native Indian commentators are invaluable guides. in explaining the theological and ritual texts of the Brahmanas and Satras, with the atmosphere of which they were familiar, they did not possess a continuous tradition from the time when the Vedic hymns were composed. That the gap between the poets and the interpreters even earlier than Yaska must have been considerable, is shown by the divergences of opinion among his predecessors as quoted by him. Thus one of these, Aurnavabha, interprets nasatyau, an epithet of the Asvins, as 'true, not false', another Agrayana, as 'leaders of truth' (satyasya pranetarau), while Yaska himself thinks it may mean 'nose-born' (nasika-prabhavau)! Yaska, moreover, mentions several different schools of interpretation, each of which explained difficulties in accordance with its own particular theory. Yaska's own interpretations, which in all cases of doubt are based on etymology, are evidently often merely conjectural, for he frequently gives several alternative explanations of a word. Thus he explains the epithet jata-vedas in as many as five different ways. Yet he must have had more and better means of ascertaining the sense of various obscure words than Sayana who lived nearly 2,000 years later. Sayana's interpretations, however, sometimes differ from those of Yaska. Hence either Yaska is wrong or Sayana does not follow the tradition. Again, Sayana often gives several inconsistent explanations of a word in interpreting the same passage or in commenting on the same word in different passages. Thus asura, 'divine being', is variously rendered by him as 'expeller of foes', 'giver of strength', 'giver of life', 'hurler away of what is undesired', 'giver of breath or water', 'thrower of oblations, priest', 'taker away of breath', 'expeller of water, Parjanya', 'impeller', 'strong', 'wise', and 'rain-water' or 'a water-discharging cloud'! In short it is clear from a careful examination of their comments that neither Yaska nor Sayana possessed any certain knowledge about a large number of words in the RV. Hence their interpretations can be treated as decisive only if they are borne out by probability, by the context, and by parallel passages.

There are a few other abstract deities whose names were originally epithets of older gods, but now become epithets of the supreme god who was being evolved at the end of the Rigvedic period. These appellations, compound in form, are of rare and late occurrence. The most important is Prajapati, 'Lord of Creatures' Originally an epithet of such gods as Savitr and Soma, this name is employed in a late verse of the tenth book to designate a distinct deity in the character of a Creator. Similarly, the epithet Visvakarman, 'all-creating', appears as the name of an independent deity to whom two hymns (x. 81. 82) are addressed. Hiranyagarbha, the 'Golden Germ', once occurs as the name of the supreme god described as the 'one lord of all that exists'. In one curious instance it is possible to watch the rise of an abstract deity of this type. The refrain of a late hymn of the RV. (x. 121) is kasmai devaya havisa vidhema? 'to what god should we pay worship with oblation?' This led to the word ká, 'who?' being used in the later Vedic literature as an independent name, Ka, of the supreme god. The only abstract deity of this type occurring in the oldest as well as the latest parts of the RV. is Brhaspati (p. 83).The second and smaller class of abstract deities comprises personifications of abstract nouns. There are seven or eight of these occurring in the tenth book. Two hymns (83, 84) are addressed to Manyu, 'Wrath', and one (x. 161) to Sraddha, 'Faith'. Anumati, 'Favour (of the gods)', Aramati, 'Devotion', Sunrta, 'Bounty', Asuniti, 'Spirit-life', and Nirrti, 'Decease', occur only in a few isolated passages.A purely abstract deity, often incidentally celebrated throughout the RV. is A-diti, 'Liberation', 'Freedom' (lit. 'un-binding'), whose main characteristic is the power of delivering from the bonds of physical suffering and moral guilt. She, however, occupies a unique position among the abstract deities, owing to the peculiar way in which the personification seems to have arisen. She is the mother of the small group of deities called Adityas, often styled 'sons of Aditi'. This expression at first most probably meant nothing more than 'sons of liberation', according to an idiom common in the RV. and elsewhere. The word was then personified, with the curious result that the mother is mythologically younger than some at least of her sons, who (for instance Mitra) date from the Indo-Iranian period. The goddess Diti, named only three times in the RV., probably came into being as an antithesis to Aditi, with whom she, is twice mentioned. play an insignificant part in the RV. The only one of importance is Usas (p. 92). Next come Sarasvati, celebrated in two whole hymns (vi. 61; vii. 95) as well as parts of others, and Vac, 'Speech' (x, 71. 125). With one hymn each are addressed Prthivi, 'Earth' (v. 84), Ratri, 'Night' (x, 127, p. 203), and Aranyani, 'Goddess of the Forest' (x. 146). Others are only sporadically mentioned. The wives of the great gods are still more insignificant, being mere names formed from those of their consorts, and altogether lacking in individuality: such are Agnayi, Indrani, Varunani, spouses of Agni, Indra, and Varuna respectively.

(Spatmittelalter, Humanismus, Reformation: Mohr Siebeck) argues for continuity between thirteenth-century debates over visionary Franciscan clerics and fifteenth-century debates over visionary lay women. More generally, I will argue for a visionary discourse about the discernment of spirits throughout the late Middle Ages, that is, not only a forward-looking discourse but a discourse in which many of the participants either experienced revelations and other special spiritual gifts or were reputed by contemporaries to have done so. Academically trained theologians who wrote about the discernment of spirits also wrote about "mystical" theology; authors of saints' lives described their own visions of the prospective saints; preachers and confessors alluded to their own spiritual consolations while offering guidance to visionaries they encountered on a daily basis. Some female visionaries — Birgitta of Sweden prominent among them — could and did contribute to this discourse, which remained relatively egalitarian until the fifteenth century. In other words, there was no absolute distinction between the "visionary" and the "examiner" until the very end of the period in question. What preoccupied these men and women was not gender, but authority: they sought to define, regulate, or justify their own or their companions' religiously based claims to influence the direction of late medieval Christendom. Their efforts turned to writing about the discernment of spirits at precisely those historical moments when the Church's authority structures were being called into question (as, indeed, they frequently were during this period). And the precise details of those historical moments had considerable and demonstrable impact on the texts that grew out of them. It is for just that reason that Anderson has also focused on examining writings about the discernment of spirits within their historical contexts, a practice which throws the idiosyncratic details of each text into the sharpest possible relief and avoids the temptation of lumping too many disparate formulations into a vaguely understood "discourse."

A Vedic Reader (Excerpts) - Internet Sacred Text Archive

by Amir D. Aczel (Macmillian) Set against the darkening shadow of World War II, Uranium Wars follows the time's most brilliant scientists as they race to capture nuclear power. Pioneering woman physicist Lise Meitner uncovered nuclear fission but never won the Nobel Prize. Denmark's Niels Bohr sided with the Allies when he held a secret meeting with his protégé and possible Nazi collaborator Werner Heisenberg. Years of dogged research culminated on a racquetball court at the University of Chicago as Italian physicist Enrico Fermi set off the first nuclear chain reaction that led to the building of the atom bomb. Told with flair by one of our best popular science writers, Uranium Wars is a fast paced and vivid narrative about a pivotal moment in history. Amir U. Aczel expertly connects the dots to today, when nations seek nuclear capability and scientists strive to better understand and responsibly manage the most controversial type of energy ever discovered.Hardly a day goes by without a major news report about nuclear issues, whether it's the international community's response to Iran's nuclear program or the future of Pakistan's atomic arsenal. At the same time, some politicians and scientists envision a future in which nuclear reactors dot the country, generating electricity that will help break our dependence on fossil fuels. Nuclear energy can help us combat global warming because this power source does not entail the release of carbon into the atmosphere. But the promise of a carbon-free energy source is checked by concerns about the ill effects of nuclear waste, as well as the danger of another disaster like the 1986 meltdown of a nuclear plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine, the human toll of which we have yet to fully quantify.

Focus and religion and philosophy

[Hardcover] by Jonathan I. Israel (Oxford University Press) That the Enlightenment shaped modernity is uncontested. Yet remarkably few historians or philosophers have attempted to trace the process of ideas from the political and social turmoil of the late eighteenth century to the present day. This is precisely what Jonathan Israel now does. In Democratic Enlightenment, Israel demonstrates that the Enlightenment was an essentially revolutionary process, driven by philosophical debate. The American Revolution and its concerns certainly acted as a major factor in the intellectual ferment that shaped the wider upheaval that followed, but the radical philosophes were no less critical than enthusiastic about the American model. From 1789, the General Revolution's impetus came from a small group of philosophe-revolutionnaires, men such as Mirabeau, Sieyes, Condorcet, Volney, Roederer, and Brissot. Not aligned to any of the social groups represented in the French National assembly, they nonetheless forged "la philosophie moderne"--in effect Radical Enlightenment ideas--into a world-transforming ideology that had a lasting impact in Latin America, Canada and eastern Europe as well as France, Italy, Germany, and the Low Countries. In addition, Israel argues that while all French revolutionary journals powerfully affirmed that la philosophie moderne was the main cause of the French Revolution, the main stream of historical thought has failed to grasp what this implies. Israel sets the record straight, demonstrating the true nature of the engine that drove the Revolution, and the intimate links between the radical wing of the Enlightenment and the anti-Robespierriste "Revolution of reason."